“You will get this person who knows something about my sister’s murder here if I promise I won’t involve him in a police investigation?”
The coach nodded. “Loga waiting nearby on telephone. I call, he come.”
D’Cruz threw up his hands. “OK,” he said. “OK.”
Choo signalled the barman who brought him a cordless phone and wheeled him out of earshot as he made contact with Loga.
Ten minutes later, a man came walking up the narrow lane that led to the hotel. It was dark, and all I could make out as he walked towards us was that he was tall, taller than I remembered. As he drew closer, I saw that he had remained trim, the way he had been fifteen years ago. He moved with that economy of movement that all good athletes possess. This was so pronounced in Loga’s case that his walk was almost a shuffle. Oscar waved to the barman as he sat down but Loga shook his head. There was a sadness about the man that touched us all.
It was several minutes before D’Cruz asked, “So this is the man I’ve waited fifteen years to meet?”
Loga said nothing.
Oscar shot the inspector a warning glance. Ozzie took the hint and looked to Choo to direct proceedings.
“You talk, Loga,” said the man in the wheelchair. “You tell things like you tell me.”
“They know how Linga died?” Loga’s voice was almost a whisper. He leaned towards us when he spoke, as though afraid that we might not catch what he said.
“We know the background,” D’Cruz assured him. The inspector’s manner was uncharacteristically gentle and he seemed strangely diffident. “You tell us what Tessie has to do with all this.”
“Do I tell him everything, Uncle?” Loga asked, putting a hand on the man’s wooden stump. His coach nodded and the footballer began to speak.
“We are identical twins, yes, but my brother Linga is the opposite of me. He always does things as he likes, when he likes.” His practice of referring to his dead twin in the present tense was unsettling but did not distract us from the story he told. “Even in football we are different. He moves quickly, thinks fast. I am the tortoise, slow and steady.”
“Like the yin-yang drawings, opposites forming a perfect circle together…” Oscar began then regretted his interruption and reached for his drink.
Loga didn’t appear to notice. “Like I say, he always moves fast, in football and in other things, but we think like one. Towards the end, Linga moves faster and faster. Things are not like usual. Even Loga cannot understand what is going on in Linga’s head. Linga says that he doesn’t want many women now, just one, one special woman. This is strange, for you know what Linga used to say about women, Uncle?”
Choo said, “Too well, I know what he said about women. He said, ‘If milk is free, why buy a-cow.’”
“Now he stops trying for every girl. He says he is searching for the one special girl. I know that he will not be satisfied with one. Linga has very powerful sexual urges. Sometimes I know his desire is uncontrollable. I know, because sometimes it is as if his need enters my body. When he doesn’t get what he wants, he becomes violent. I fear this, for Loga’s heart feels the frustration and anger that burns in Linga.
“But mother is happy. She says that Linga’s time to settle down has come. She will find him a good Indian girl, a virgin.
“Linga is happy, at first. Then he starts drinking. I tell myself not to worry. He is often like this. Now he starts the drugs. At first, he is just fooling, trying to frighten me. I am close to my brother. I know what goes on in his head. He is thinking that if he gets bad, really bad, we will all be happy when he stops for whatever reason. All the time, mother is trying to arrange a marriage for him.
“One day, Linga comes home and tells mother to stop looking. He has found the girl. Is she Hindu like we are, mother asks, is she a virgin? Linga laughs. She is not a Hindu. She is a Christian, but she is a virgin. That he can guarantee. And she will stay a virgin till they are married in church.
“‘Church,’ mother shouts, ‘what church? We are Hindus.’ But the girl he loves is a Catholic, Linga says.
“He must marry her, he says. There is no woman that loves him as much as this girl. I know that he desires her. I am his twin. I feel what he feels. It is like one part of me is doing the same thing that Linga does, one part of me that I feel but cannot control. He wants her and can’t control his desire. I know that he may break down, that his love can turn to violence. He says he can wait till the girl tells her family and they are married. But that is not true for the beast inside him I feel. I feel it is just like I used to feel the ball as Linga hit it into the goal. Sometimes, I cannot tell if the burning inside is in me or in my brother.” He stopped talking and looked around the table. “Maybe it doesn’t matter. Maybe we are one person, we feel joy together and pain together. We should have died together.”
I noticed that something was happening to Ozzie. Even when Loga shifted slightly in his seat, the inspector’s eyes followed him. He seemed on the verge of wanting to say something. It was Choo, however, who spoke.
“When you play, Uncle can see it is like one person playing inside two bodies, the combination is so perfect.”
Loga looked at him but did not smile or in any way acknowledge what the older man had said. His soft voice had lost all emphasis. It had become mechanical, like the movements of a sleepwalker.
“I don’t see Linga for days. Mother is worried and asks me to go and look for him. I don’t know what to do. I feel the tension building inside my body. I must do something about it or I will burst. Then late one night, I wake up. I feel as though two people are fighting inside me, I feel pain, then I feel the joy of release. My body is at peace. The tension that fought inside me is gone.”
D’Cruz again seemed about to ask a question, then stopped himself, and Loga continued.
“The next morning, Linga comes home. Our mother is happy. We are all happy. Then I read in the papers about this young girl, this Theresa D’Cruz. She is murdered but, before that, the papers say, she is raped. My brother is calm, but I am boiling inside. I know that I am feeling what he should be feeling. I am feeling this because of something he has done.”
Ozzie was leaning so far forward in his chair he was barely sitting on it. He asked, “What made you connect your brother with this murder?”
Loga did not turn or otherwise acknowledge the inspector’s question. He just continued his recital. “I know that something happened that night, and the girl was like the one Linga talked about. She is a Catholic, she is a virgin. I know she is not raped. She is, maybe, pushed to the ground, but she is not raped. I don’t think I can rape a woman, and what I cannot do Linga really cannot do.”
“But there was medical evidence…” D’Cruz began.
Loga ignored the interruption. “A young girl loses her virginity. There is blood but this doesn’t mean that she did not consent to the act. There is pain too, but this doesn’t bother her too much. Then there is fear. Her family are strict Catholics. If it is known what she has done, there will be shame. If she gets pregnant, this will be worse. And if this man does not marry her, there will be dishonour for the whole family.
“The girl begins to accuse her lover of being only after one thing. She is wild with fear. She uses language that surprises him. Words that an innocent girl shouldn’t know. He tries to calm her. Tells her that this little act makes no difference to what there is between them. She will not be calmed. She begins to strike him. She begins to scream. He covers her mouth but this doesn’t stop the screaming. He puts his hands on her throat and presses gently but the noise continues. It is shrill, screeching, so loud the whole town can hear it. He squeezes harder and the screaming stops. She is not fighting him any more. Her body is soft. She has fallen asleep. He calls but she will not wake up. He kisses her but there is no response. He shakes her shoulders, slaps her face but nothing happens. He feels her throat where his hands were. The pulse is no longer there. He tries to give her the kiss of life, but maybe
he doesn’t know how, and she does not wake.”
For the first time, Loga seemed to admit to an audience. “What can poor Linga do? He didn’t mean to kill the girl. He only wanted to make love to her and now he has a dead body on his hands. He realises that people will say that this is murder, that this is rape. He knows how people look on a sex criminal. Nothing he can say now is going to help him. He has his widowed mother to think of. She will die if she has a rapist for a son.
“So Linga does the only thing he can do. He leaves the body naked. He takes her panties and ties them tightly round her neck. Let the police look for a sex criminal. No one knows of their connection. It was a secret. No one will think of Linga as a rapist. Why should he rape? There are so many women in town that he can have. But Linga never found peace. His head is full of noises, his heart thumps with anguish. Even drink and drugs do not stop this. He thinks of the trains. They fly past every night. If he lies on the track, the train will pass over him like a wave of peace.
“He knows he will not have the courage to kill himself so he begins to drink from early in the morning. He will chew some opium later. He watches the clock. He knows the night-mail passes at half-past ten. At a quarter past, he is lying on the track. He feels the rails shuddering, like Tessie shuddering under him as he is about to enter her. He pushes harder and harder. He hears Tessie scream and her voice is the whistle of the train.” Loga’s body went slack and his voice died away.
We were all silent. D’Cruz broke the silence. His voice was much too loud but it was less disturbing than the question he asked. “Why did you have to kill her, Loga?”
Choo said, voice indignant, “Loga didn’t kill the girl, policeman. Linga kill her.”
“Oh, no. This one here is the murderer.”
I was puzzled. “What makes you say that, Ozzie?”
“The newspapers called her Theresa. Only someone who knew her very well would call her Tessie.” I looked sceptical. “It’s true, in traditional Indian families even spouses address each other formally. And for one who was not actually present, he knows too many damn details.”
“Linga and Loga are the same. Two parts of completeness. One kills, one dies, one plans the goal, the other kicks the ball.”
Oscar asked, “I don’t quite understand, my good man. Are you admitting to killing the inspector’s sister?”
“The girl dies. She is not murdered but I am responsible for her death.”
Oscar continued, “Why have you agreed to tell us all this?”
“While my mother lived, I could not bring shame on her. Last month she died, so I am free to rid myself of a burden I have carried these past fifteen years.”
“Well, Ozzie,” said Oscar. “What we have heard leaves me quite speechless. Is the case closed? Can fifteen-year-old cases be reopened?”
D’Cruz looked at Loga. “What do you want to do with yourself?”
“The woman I loved is dead. My mother and my brother are dead. It only remains for me to join them.”
“How?” asked D’Cruz. “Are you going to lie under a train too?”
The tall man smiled for the first time. “There are high-rise buildings now and there is always the sea. I can’t fly and I can’t swim.”
“Choose the sea,” D’Cruz advised. “They say it’s not frightening. Just like going to sleep, they say.”
“BUT WHY DO we have to go to the Sundrams’ place now?”
“Walk along and I’ll tell you.”
We were walking down Killiney Road.
As soon as his story was done, Loga left as quietly as he had come.
Ozzie sat silently for several minutes, then suggested he and I visit the Sundrams. Then, sensing our disappointment at his reaction on meeting his sister’s killer, said, “What did you expect me to do? Strangle the man with my bare hands, grab a knife from the bar and cut his balls off…”
“I can’t say we expected the reaction we did get,” said Oscar.
“I guess when I heard the full story, I realised I didn’t quite want revenge as much as I thought.”
“Didn’t you want to punish the man?” I asked.
“I don’t know. Maybe he’s been punished enough, maybe he’ll be punished where he’s going, maybe he’s done nothing that calls for punishment.” Then Ozzie did something I didn’t think him capable of: he sighed. “I sure as hell saw the whole thing arse-end up. Hearing it the way he told it made it sound more an accident than anything else. So I guess Tessie can now sleep in peace. Big Ozzie has found her killer, though he’s more of a lover than a murderer.
“I’ve had some fresh thoughts about the present crimes, so, while Oscar and Legless sit drinking here, How Kum and I will go for a little walk.” He gave me no chance to protest and dragged me out of the Mitre.
As soon as we were outside he said, “While I got Tessie’s murder all ballsed up, I think I’m near solving your girlfriend’s killing.”
“You don’t agree with me about Mohan.”
“No. I think I know who and why but not how.” He put a hand on my shoulder before continuing. “I think the old man’s our murderer and he did it because of you.”
“But Sundram accepted me.”
“Only after the girl was safely dead. Hearing Loga talk about his mother reminded me of how deep prejudices go.”
“But the old man doted on Vanita.”
“I know people do the darndest things for love. I know of one upright Christian mum who cut off her baby boy’s balls to prevent him from sinning, forgetting how she had got him in the first place. As for your Vanita, she seemed hell-bent on bringing shame to the family one way or another. The last straw would have been her choosing to marry a Chink.” I felt him smile. “Because, however much you may not like it, that’s what you look like.”
“Even if Sundram is guilty of his daughter’s murder, you can’t see him going on a rampage and killing four other people? And he can’t possibly be strong enough to drive a knife through a man’s chest.”
“True. But what the rich cannot do, they can get others to do for them.”
“Come on, Ozzie. You talked like this when you wanted me to suspect Oscar. You can take out a contract on one life but you can’t ask a hired killer to go round a park knocking people off willy-nilly. And, are you suggesting that Sundram got several people killed just to throw the police off the scent?”
“Of that I’m not sure. Maybe he was on a moral kick. Got so ashamed of his daughter’s behaviour that he felt he would be doing the world a favour ridding it of people who did their fucking outside the marital bed.”
I remembered the look of pain on the old man’s face when his son had taunted him and said that his own, Mohan’s, nocturnal wanderings, unlike Vanita’s, would not lead to any loss of semen. I remained silent.
D’Cruz said, “I’m not sure of many things. What I am sure of is that we will find the answers to many of our questions in that house in Cairnhill Circle.”
The house was in total darkness when we arrived. I rang the bell but nothing happened. Then I remembered that Leela had gone to India and there would be no one in if Mohan and the old man were out.
“Ring the bell again,” Ozzie instructed. I did. Nothing happened.
Ozzie turned the knob and to our surprise the door was open. “Let’s take a look. People in Singapore never leave their doors unlocked. Something about this place stinks like a bucket latrine.”
The sitting-room was pitch-dark. I realised that I was afraid. Not of physical harm but of something else. Usually, I regard darkness as an envelope of comfort. Now I had no doubt that it could also be a hiding place for evil. I was aware of being surrounded by a spirit of malevolence. So strong was this feeling that my feet became glued to the ground. Ahead of me I could just see the inspector moving forward. I forced myself to follow him. D’Cruz walked with a crouch, his arms held in front of him. Suddenly I felt that I needed light in much the way that a drowning man needs air, and reached for the switches on the
wall. The inspector slapped my hand down before I touched them.
He pulled out a pen torch, shielded it with his palm before turning it on, and we moved forward. In its glow I could just make out objects in the room. Everything was as I remembered. I released the breath I had been holding and inhaled deeply. There was the smell of incense in the air. It was clear that Sundram had been praying. We went into the kitchen and then into the two downstairs rooms. Nothing seemed to be amiss. When we reached the bottom of the stairs we heard the noises.
They were difficult to describe. They sounded a little like someone falling down a flight of stairs but ever so slowly, with the thumps never getting closer. The intervals between thumps were long but absolutely regular. It was impossible to imagine what was making them, though an inner voice told me it was something horribly unpleasant.
The sounds got louder as we climbed the stairs and seemed to be coming from Sundram’s room. The door was ajar. Inside the room, the smell of incense was overpowering. The room itself was vast and dark: in infinite emptiness. I sensed rather than saw a shadow suspended from the ceiling and swirling round and round. It was the source of the thumping.
We had been moving in darkness and I assumed this had some purpose. I was surprised when Ozzie snapped, “You know where the switches are, turn on some fucking lights.”
I reached behind me and did.
It was an old-fashioned house and its roof was supported by heavy wooden beams which are concealed by an asbestos ceiling. Anything heavy would have to be supported from these beams, and not the ceiling. Overhead fans have heavy motors. Special U-shaped clasps are screwed into the wooden beams to support them.
Sundram was hanging from one of these clasps by a length of plastic cord. His neck sagged on to his chest and a trickle of spittle stained the front of his shirt. The fan was on low and, as it turned, one of the blades caught his limp form and slammed it against a nearby cupboard. His face was peaceful and his eyes were closed. He looked like an old man who had fallen asleep at a party. A chair lay on the floor beside a table on which it had recently stood. It was clear the old man had hanged himself. Ozzie jumped forward and grabbed Sundram’s legs so his neck was no longer stretched. “Get me a knife,” he ordered.
Moonrise, Sunset Page 23
